ia/ - Measurement and research

Nielsen drops page view ranking

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:47:23 -0700

From USA Today, Nielsen drops page view rankings in favor of weighing time on site as more important.

Article specifically cites online video and Ajax as reasons why page views are meaningless.

Time on site is also skewed. Measuring content views would be a more precise measurement of user engagement. (You can track content views for both video and ajax.)

Christopher Fahey writes an interesting series on the âSmoke & Mirrorsâ of user research.

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:38:48 -0700

As designers look towards user research for the objective truth, Christopher questions the motives behind the research. He follows with a series of articles, the first of which discuss user research as a pseudo science pointing to absolutes that do not exist. He continues the discussion stating that tools such as eye tracking provide results that are already apparent to good UI designers. His latest article explains that a value of user research is often to cut through the politics and convince stakeholders to make good design decisions. His upcoming article: âResearch as Bullshitâ

Costs of Badly Done Customer Research?

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 10:37:55 -0800

In light of growing acceptance of user or customer research, it's worth considering the costs of poorly done research. For retailers, it seems especially important to make sure every contact with customers reinforces the values associated with a brand.

I just had a negative experience with customer research, that impacted my perception of the retailer and the associated brand. I spent some time thinking about it from my own viewpoint as a customer, and it seemed the most important cost to the retailer is in terms of closing a channel for business. In this case, the botched online survey I walked through makes me unwilling to engage with them on the web again.

I posted a quick writeup, with screenshots of the survey, here.

I know there's material on these costs from marketing perspectives, but I'm wondering if anyone's working on this from the point of view of IA and UX, when they're focused on better connecting the business with its customers and user?

Recent Intelligence Failures Demonstrate Value of Qualitative User Research

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 04:42:00 -0700

An Op-Ed column in the NY Times sheds light on the ways that qualitative research yields strategic insight.

Tracking user navigation methods by logging where users click on web pages

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 04:42:14 -0800

I wrote about some research we're doing in my organization to observe user interaction with navigation by tracking where users click on the page (body, local navigation, breadcrumbs, global navigation). Our observations aren't dissimilar to what Michael Bernard observes in usability testing -- links to content are most often searched for/clicked in the body of pages. Navigating our site (a digital library) consists mainly of browsing through a directory (a-z lists are available as are a poly-hierarchical directory listing), so what we were mainly interested in was how people made use of the links in the local navigation. I'd be interested in seeing if other people have done this and what they were looking for. I find, as an in-house site developer, that being responsible for a site for a long term (as opposed to just launching one and going on to a new project) gives one good opportunity to observe and assess the site for usability. Your can assess patterns of use over long periods of time. You can make contact with users and keep the lines of feedback open with them over time. Clearly there is something unique about being involved in the evolution of a singular site, which I am only beginning to appreciate.

How people use the Internet Daily

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 07:56:59 -0700

A colleague pointed me to the statistics kept by Pew Internet & American Life on the typical daily activities of Internet users. The data are compiled from market research they publish related to their mission of providing research on the Internet's growth and societal impact. The organization funds original, academic-quality research that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life.

How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibilibility?

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 02:07:50 -0800

On the AIfIA Members list, Christina pointed to this report by Consumer WebWatch that presents the results of a study on Web site credibility. The report finds that information structure is the second most important aspect of a site for determining credibility following design.

Studying information seeking and use

Tue, 10 Dec 2002 12:20:47 -0800

I have been dealing lately with user research based on interviews and product usage data. Some needs related to this work have been bouncing around in my head. What's fascinating to me is that related new literature has recently come across my desk and I've also participated in some conversations recently that have definitely informed how I am considering fulfilling these needs. That any of these seemingly separate things (literature, discourse, my work) should be related is amazing to me.

Human universals

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 06:20:13 -0700

New Adaptive Path articles

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 13:43:21 -0700

Adaptive Path is cornerning the market on IA articles and mind share lately. Superstars write a lot.

Progress Paralysis: Eight steps to get your Web site moving again by Peter Merholz in New Architect.

The Culture of Usability: How to spend less and get more from your usability-testing program by Janice Fraser in New Architect.

What people say, what people do, and what people say they do...

Fri, 06 Sep 2002 10:48:39 -0700

There's an interesting excerpt from a 1977 article called “Telling More Than We Know” talking about the original study that showed that what people say is not necessarily what they do. In this case, test subjects were given a problem to solve and denied getting the solution from a clue they were given, even giving credit to a useless clue while neglecting to mention the genuinely helpful one.

Ten Best Intranets of 2002

Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:18:32 -0700

Jakob's article promotes their annual Intranet report, which is perhaps most interesting to people who want to benchmark their intranet against some best of class intranets out there. There appear to be some good general observations about how corporations approach intranet re-designs and buy in.

UPA Voice. Volume 4 Issue 3 (Sept 2002)

Tue, 03 Sep 2002 04:17:37 -0700

New issue of the UPA newsletter is out with these articles.

STC Usability SIG, Usability toolkit

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 06:55:52 -0700

The STC Usability SIG offers a collection of documents including forms, checklists, templates for conducting usability testing and user interviews.

Accessibility Arguments Revisited

Tue, 27 Aug 2002 10:34:43 -0700

New on Frontend Usability Infocentre.